


Whiteout

by WaterSoter



Category: NCIS
Genre: Angst, Christmas, Disturbing Themes, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, NCIS Secret Santa, NCIS Secret Santa 2017, Team, Team as Family, gen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 16:53:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13081164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaterSoter/pseuds/WaterSoter
Summary: It was hard to feel the Christmas spirit after the kind of case they had just closed. Gen. Team. Friendship. Season 2.





	Whiteout

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jacie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jacie/gifts).



> This is written for the NCIS Secret Santa of 2017. Jacie I was hoping to write you something long but real life, the flu and about everything else got in my way. Merry Christmas and I hope you like your story! Thanks so much to my beta CutsyCat! She is amazing!! All mistakes are entirely mine.

*O*O*O*

  
They’d stumbled from the wreckage of the car, dazed, shocked but alive. That at least they could be grateful for. Kate helped McGee as he stumbled in the snow. It was high and thick and more flurries fell like blankets on them, like an ocean of ice. Kate knew they would be soaked through by the time they found shelter, if they found any at all.  
  
She glanced back at Tony, who held his arm at an awkward angle and Gibbs whose face was covered in blood. Both had their guns out and trained at the smoking truck that had purposely rammed into them.  
  
“Freeze!” Tony yelled, although his voice broke at that last syllable, and Kate watched his face morph into a sort of resigned shock, like what he saw was expected but not welcome. Gibbs was all fury as he pulled a man by the collar, no, a boy, no older than the ones they had arrested not even twelve hours ago. Gibbs slammed the boy onto the ground first then up on the truck while the boy snarled and fought like a wild animal.  
  
“It’s your fault, it’s your fault!” He screamed and screamed and despite the fading light, Kate realized that she knew this kid. She had interviewed him; sat in his house with his mom and dad as Gibbs broke news no parent would ever want to hear. “You took him away!” The last was a shocked sob.  
  
Kate almost let Tim go to get closer to help, but McGee swayed like a drunk and Kate redoubled her efforts to keep him from face-planting on the ground. “Kid,” Tony started, but then he too swayed in place, went whiter than the snow around them and went down hard.  
  
Abby was there a second later and Kate started realizing that she hadn’t even remembered that Abby had been there with them in the car. Did she hit her head?  
  
Kate shook it off as another set of headlights fell on them. She had her gun in her hand and the other gripping Tim as he made to slide down into the snow. If it was another local wanting some misguided revenge on them, they weren’t going to find them easy targets.  
  
Instead the large truck stopped, hands came out of the rolled down passenger and driver’s windows. Yelled instructions and then Mr. and Mrs. McKenzie were stepping out of their truck. Mrs. McKenzie looked like she had aged twenty years. Eyes hollow, deep grooves under them, her usually neat, dark brown hair a rat’s nest kept together by a hair tie.  
  
Mr. McKenzie wasn’t much better. Red eyes, balding red hair in a more on his head. Hands shook as he held them up. The mismatch of gloves, hats and everything else a sure sign that they had left in a hurry. She even thought that he might wearing a pajama top and his wife a nightgown under their coats.  
  
“Mr. Gibbs,” He started, noticed that Gibbs had his gun pointed right at him and seemed to shrink in place. His shoulders slumped and defeat filled in every line of his body. Kate really felt sorry for the man. Three boys, two in jail for such hideous crimes she wouldn’t be surprised if the town rose up with pitchforks and torches in the middle of the night and dragged all three boys out of the jail and hung them from a tree. A very good reason she had tried to get Gibbs, and Tony, to push for taking the kids into federal custody. But Gibbs had let the sheriff take them and Tony had started talking about his plans for Christmas like they weren’t about to see three fourteen year olds tried as adults without a prayer for a good defense.   
  
“Mr. Gibbs, my boys . . .” Mr. McKenzie shook his head, took off his cap and ran his hand over thinning red hair. Kate kept her gun firmly on Mrs. McKenzie although she didn’t think that the woman posed any kind of threat. “Jimmy was just angry, Mr. Gibbs, he wasn’t thinking.”  
  
Mrs. McKenzie’s eyes were only for her son. She didn’t seem to care that Kate could and would shoot her if she made one move towards any of them. She just stared at her son, her face like stone but her eyes like two black holes. Kate could really understand why Gibbs and Tony would want to wash their hands of this case. Dead kids, killer kids, and a town shocked and angry and terrified and terrorized.  
  
“Yeah, and my agents he could’ve killed?” Gibbs made a motion with his head at the rest of them. At Tony who was, thankfully, coming around, at McGee who looked like he was one stiff wind from getting knocked on his face. She didn’t think she looked much better, but at least she was standing without support.  
  
The boy, Jimmy, was stock still against the hood of the wrecked truck. Face facing his parents so Kate couldn’t make out his expression. But if she had been in his place, with her parents staring at her like that, everything would have started to sink in.  
  
Mr. McKenzie glanced over at them, first Tony, who Abby was helping prop, then Tim, who swayed with the mild breeze with her tight grip the only thing keeping him upright and finally Gibbs. Half his hair and face covered in blood and his face starting to sport a really nasty bruise.  
  
He dropped his eyes, cap in his hands and a deadening expression. He didn’t say anything more, just stood there. Gibbs lowered his gun but didn’t reholster it. Kate did the same, mainly because Tim was really starting to get heavy and she would need more than just one hand to keep him upright.  
  
Over the horizon the last of the day’s light faded away. In their little circle, flurries continued to fall on them like a slow moving river. Kate felt the heavy clouds overhead like boulders on her shoulders.

*O*O*O*

“No mom, the airports are closed.” Not that it would had mattered if they hadn’t been. Even with the case more or less done on their end, Gibbs would want their reports typed and ready to file before they took off to their respective holiday celebrations. Her first year they hadn’t been on call but Kate had heard enough through the agency grapevine. “Yes, I’ll try to make it for the 26th.” Not that she was holding her breath for that either.    
  
They had already been cutting it close with a northeastern heading their way and now they were stuck. For Christmas Eve. Day. Maybe even a couple of days after. Kate doubted very much that she would be seeing her family before new years.   
  
“Yes mom, I know.” She glanced out the window, at the large flakes that hadn’t stopped falling since that morning. The white of the snow covered everything in view. Might even be pretty if they weren’t stuck there. “Tell dad I love him too.”   
  
Headlights and a police cruiser pulled up outside their suite. Kate signed as Abby practically jumped out of the car, with a deputy trailing after her. Both had enough shopping bags for a small army. “I’ll let you know. I gotta go mom, love you.” She hung up just as Abby bounced up the door.   
  
“Kate, Kate, Kate!” Abby shoved a bunch of bags at her before she bounced inside with way too much energy after the day they had had. The deputy stood awkwardly in the doorway. The guy was way too young. Didn’t even look old enough to drink much less carry a gun. The ridiculous blush that spread like a wild fire from his neck all the way to the tips of his ears didn’t help either.   
  
“Thanks for doing this, deputy -” She tried reading his name tag but it was too dark and she was too tired for it to come out as anything but squiggly lines.   
  
“Er, Matthews, Mark Matthews, ma’am.” He tried holding out his hand, but then he banged his bags against the doorway, spilling a few sparkly things all over the floor. Kate sighed as the poor guy jumped then fell on his knees to grab the whatever they were.   
  
Abby of course bounced back over, just as the deputy got up, took everything from him, gave him a kiss in the cheek that had him going a deeper shade of red than Kate thought was healthy, before she was off in her typical whirlwind that would put an oversugared five-year-old to shame.  
  
Deputy Matthews stood there with that look that Abby tended to inspire: a bizarre combination of smitten and bamboozled. Kate smiled at the deputy, motioned behind her and shut the door in his face. A bit rude but frankly, she was more worried about what Abby had bought and what she was doing in the next room.   
  
The suite was the last of rooms available in the entire town. With the holidays and the blizzard, they had been lucky to get anything at all. But it felt strange to Kate, not just for the expense, which Gibbs had grumbled a lot about. There was just something wrong about them living it up in a luxurious hotel while the McKenzies and the Roberts and so many other families were trapped in the horrors of this last case.  
  
Kate made her way to what was a sort of living room with a full kitchen attached. Abby was puttering in front the island. Already there was an assortment of large aluminum foil containers. Delicious aromas whiffing from each one, making her stomach rumble.   
  
Around the room sparkles and Christmas decorations were tastefully, for Abby, spread out. Kate blinked, there was just no way possible that Abby had been able to do all that in the time it had taken Kate to get rid of the deputy.   
  
“Abby . . .” She trailed off as she spotted a miniature Christmas tree on a table by the fireplace. It had lights and even had tiny spheres and ornaments. There was a golden star at the top that was made of reflective material that made it shine with the fireplace’s flames.   
  
“Isn’t it great, Kate! Now we won’t have to miss Christmas and look,” She pointed at a red bag where a few wrapped packages peeked out. “I even got us presents and everything.”  
  
Kate honestly didn’t know what to say to any of that and it must’ve shown on her face, since Abby actually stopped, twirled around in those impossible high heels and looked at her like she had just run over puppies, skinned kittens and dumped baby bunnies in a vat of acid. “Uh uh, nope! No grinches allowed this year.” She emphasized that by pointing a damning finger at her.   
  
She took a deep breath, tried to call patience that had been frayed in the past week and a half. Little sleep, dealing with family after family, bodies of children as young as five cut up then thrown away like trash, when Abby went from mulish to downright stubborn something in Kate snapped. “Maybe I wouldn’t be such a grinch if I hadn’t spent the last week going through the bodies of mutilated children, Abby!”  
  
Abby’s face lost a lot of its color and Kate remembered that while Kate dealt with parents and bodies, Abby had been the one to go through it all. By herself. Without anyone to pull her out of those horrible moments. But before she could say anything else, apologize for being an ass for starters, the door to one of the bedrooms creaked open and Tony stepped through.  
  
He glanced at Kate, then over at Abby then closed the door with a gentleness that reminded Kate that Tim was sleeping the sleep of the painfully drugged. Three broken ribs and a nasty bump, which was better than a concussion.   
  
Tony carefully shuffled over to them, his arms pulled over his chest. Kate pointedly looked at it but Tony ignored her. He simply stepped over to Abby and with a grin that was unlike that of a kid in a toy store, he pulled one of her pigtails and grabbed a slice of ham from one of the containers. Though where Abby managed to get real ham on Christmas eve Kate had no idea. They’d already had a hell of a time getting them all treated at the ER and getting their prescriptions filled out.   
  
“Hey, Abbygirl.” Tony muttered around a large bite of ham. “What did you get me?”  
  
Kate rolled her eyes but that had broken Abby out of a potential tear fest. A moment later, Abby was going a mile a minute about the food and presents and decorations while Tony helped her with a few things she hadn’t been able to put out and up.   
  
Later, Gibbs would come back from the precinct to a warm meal and a cup of Tony’s famous or infamous cocoa, depending on who you asked. Then Tim would be dragged out by an overenthusiastic Tony and Abby, blinking at the bright lights in a way that wouldn’t bode well for Tim and the potential blackmail material Tony would assemble.   
  
Kate would try, hard, to stay apart. Her feelings on the whole situation unchanged. But maybe somewhere in all of that, as she watched Gibbs’ face soften like it rarely did. Abby and Tony placing stockings with their names in colorful sharpies with sparkles. Tim drooling on Tony and Abby taking photos. She was reminded that there were things that were worth celebrating. And while Kate still felt for the families of all those children, for the Roberts and the McKenzies whose lives would never be the same. Kate remembered that today they could have easily lost someone but they didn’t. They were alive, safe and for the moment, happy.


End file.
